Contributed by Hugh Yoho, Sunland California
Various histories of the Upper Ohio Valley have accounts of Captain John Baker. These accounts agree in substance, but differ in some minor details. He was killed by Indians in 1787, and his son John Baker, Jr. was killed by Indians at the same location in 1794.
“History of Marshall County, West Virginia” by Scott Powell, gives this account:
Captain John Baker was born in Prussia and came to America about 1760. He arrived at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and five years later married Elizabeth Sullivan of that city, and from there the young couple moved to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia where they lived two years and from there removed to the waters of Dunkard Creek, now in Greene County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1767 and remained there seven years. At the time they lived on that creek there were a number of Indians residing on it and they and the whites were very friendly. At the breaking out of Dunmore’s War he removed his family to Redstone Old Fort, now Brownsville. The American Revolution breaking out soon after the close of Dunmore’s War, Indian hostilities soon followed the breaking out of the war. He remained at the fort for a number of years, and was in the service of that Colony of Virginia much of the time during that war, but there is little record of him.
He went from Redstone to Catfish Camp in 1781, where he remained a short time and then removed to Round Bottom and in 1784 Captain Baker built a blockhouse near the upper end of Cresap’s Bottom. This place was generally known by the name of Baker’s Station. (near what is now Moundsville, West Virginia)
While two of the Wetzel men were at Baker’s Station in 1787, they and Captain Baker noticed some Indians on the opposite shore of the Ohio River walking about leisurely. Baker getting an opportunity shot at one of them and killed him. The others ran away as if badly frightened, leaving the dead Indian where he fell. They did it evidently to deceive the whites as it was proved later by their actions. Baker and the two Wetzels crossed the river and were viewing the dead Indian when several shots were fired and Baker fell mortally wounded.. The Wetzels treed and commenced to fight and some other men crossed the river and reinforced them and drove the Indians off and recovered the body of Baker. He had crawled a short distance from where he fell and was alive when recovered but died soon after arriving at the station. He was buried on a flat near a stream called Grave Yard Run at the upper end of Cresap’s Bottom.